What Happens In the Dark Comes To Light

What we try do in the dark eventually will see the light – and the consequences are often far-reaching in scope for generations to come. As leaders, we are to be doubly aware that our private lives are often intertwined with the public personas we have carefully cultivated particularly those of us with higher callings or larger platforms to impact change. In the age of social media, we also have discovered how unforgiving the masses can be until the next calamity occurs and it affects them [examples:  anarchists until floods or tornadoes destroy their homes, the religious among us who put more faith in inanimate symbols such as the American flag or dollar bill than a living God who provides all we need as well as some of our wants; stars caught up in extramarital affairs until an unexpected pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease enter the picture; etc.]

Samson was such a man whose private life failed to align with his public persona.

We all remember him in Judges 13-16 as the muscleman who was to deliver Israel from the Philistines. His outsized physical strength was a specific gift meant to set him apart from the crowd and serve the Lord; however, this came with certain conditions. He could not ever cut his hair, drink alcohol, or do anything unclean to lessen his significance among the Israelites. Samson may have been a hairy dude and not what we would consider today our modern-day hero. Nevertheless, he was a leader of men.

Did he lead a pure life?

No.

Do you?

I thought so. Keep reading to find out what else comes out in the light.

Samson got drunk, ate honey from dead lions and ravished other unclean spaces, threw tantrums, chased sluts, and eventually fell for the wrong woman. In other words, he was a man. Each time he stepped out of God’s covenant, he was reminded of his purpose to lead Israel to freedom. In other words, he did most of the same things the average man has done in his life before – and sometimes after – acknowledging his life’s work. Yet, his twenty years of service to the Israelites were more than sufficient for what they gave him in return. Samson was bad-to-the-bone but his personal life had a sneaky way of derailing his awesomeness.

Understand not all women can be classified as deceiving, but in Delilah’s case, the shoe fits. If Prada or Christian Louboutin had a shoe store back then, she would be the one wearing the red bottom pumps over a sleeping Samson who was unknowingly weakened after the enemy cut his hair.

But before the fatal haircut…Delilah plotted with the Philistine leaders to avenge Samson’s killings of at least thirty-two people and the destruction of their wheat fields. Have him tell you where his strength comes from, they implored Delilah. Do whatever it takes for him to tell you then we’ll capture him and present the captive to Dagon. Delilah used the same beauty that attracted the hero to her guile by wining and dining, doing those freaky things to him that probably made his toes curl up like Ramen noodles, and otherwise played up to his sympathies in an attempt for him to spill the beans on where his strength lies. Over time, he was worn down from breaking ropes and chains as if they were sheets of paper Mache dolls and finally revealed to her his hair had never been cut. Once his mane was shorn of its locks, Samson was reduced to a mere mortal just as the Philistines had conspired to do in the first place.

Samson did not know that the Lord had left him. – Judges 16:20

With a considerably weakened body and gouged eyes, Samson was escorted to a banquet in Gaza where he was jeered and mocked by the same Philistines he broke bread and laid down with as they praised their god Dagon for his capture. A young man who was leading him by the hand was asked to take him to the middle columns that are holding up the roof which he was compliant. In one last gust of glory, God provides Samson with one more burst of strength to topple the temple killing everyone inside including himself!

We all need to pay close attention to our own private lives even as many of them parallel Samson making sure that God is at the center of those in addition to the public lives.

The things that happen in the dark do come out in the light.